Chinese premiere of Django Unchained cancelled

The Chinese debut of Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning film "Django Unchained" was abruptly cancelled on Thursday due to "technical problems" according to the cinemas.

China is now the largest international market for Hollywood and the opening of the film had been widely anticipated because of speculation it would only have to undergo minor cuts from government censors.

Bloggers speculated that the last-minute cancellation was to enable censors to remove some nudity. An official at a cinema in Shanghai said:

"We got the notice from our headquarters around 10:00 a.m. this morning but it was too late to cancel two viewings.

"We were only told that it was due to some technology problems and were told to cancel it. They didn't tell us when the film would be shown again."

Quentin Tarantino, was rumoured to be overseeing the process of moderating the violence in the film to make it suitable for the censored Chinese market, the Guardian reported.